


A Chance to do Something Great

by eternal_song



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Voltron Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Don't Have to Know Canon, Established Relationship, Horitsuba-style twin names, KuroFai Olympics, Kurogane's potty mouth, M/M, Panic Attacks, References to Canon, Team Space, VLD Canon and all of its writers can kiss my ass, Wingfic, for Tsubasa, for Voltron, not safe for newbies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-07 04:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20303161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternal_song/pseuds/eternal_song
Summary: The mysterious disappearance of the Kerberos mission. Carvings of a wolf and a strange energy in the desert. Transmissions from an alien warship headed for Earth. As they try to connect the pieces, Fai, Kurogane, and Syaoran find themselves embroiled in an intergalactic war they never could have imagined.(This is written to (hopefully) be accessible to people who have never watched VLD.)





	A Chance to do Something Great

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for the Kurofai Olympics 2019, representing Team Space with the prompt "Wingfic"!
> 
> I swore up, down, and sideways that I was done with the VLD fandom for good and wouldn't write a crossover for this prompt. You can see how that worked out for me.
> 
> The title is, of course, taken from Shiro's words of wisdom in VLD episode 1: “If you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss a chance to do something great.”

When the Garrison’s mission to Pluto’s moon Kerberos disappeared, it made international headlines. The Garrison’s official investigation determined that the pilot had crashed into the moon’s surface, killing him and his two crewmates — an astrobiologist and a junior communications technician. Both the scientific community and the world at large mourned the loss of the two talented professors and their gifted young student. The family members they had left back on Earth mourned them more profoundly.

Four months later, the Garrison’s best astrochemistry professor left the institution. Speculation flew regarding the reasons for his departure, but among the students who knew him, the leading hypothesis was that the Garrison had dismissed him for hacking into their computer systems and spreading rumors. He insisted they were covering up what had happened to the Kerberos mission — that the crew members were still alive out there. Many wrote his words off as the ramblings of a grief-stricken madman; everyone knew he had a conflict of interest in the matter. If the mission hadn’t crashed, what had caused their sudden, ominous radio silence? How could the crew have survived on an icy rock at the edge of the solar system?

The man disappeared into the desert.

* * *

Syaoran sat on the rooftop and gazed up at the stars. They glinted in the clear air of the Arizona desert. Though the light pollution from the Garrison’s nearby airfield covered many of the fainter ones from view, he could still see many more stars in the sky than he could back in Hong Kong. He played with the corners of the folded note in his pocket. Technically, he was breaking curfew and should be back in his dormitory, but curiosity had driven him out here.

The note had been on his pillow when he’d returned from the flight simulator for the evening. His roommate denied any knowledge of its origins before launching into a story about the history of notes, which, while fascinating, hadn’t helped him determine who had left it on his pillow, or how. The note read: “Be on the roof tonight after dark. Maybe do some stargazing while you’re waiting.” The handwriting was loopy and flowing, and a small black cat took the place of a signature in the bottom corner. Until eight months ago, Syaoran had regularly seen that handwriting in red ink on his chemistry assignments, correcting his mistakes and writing encouragements. The cat drawings had stopped accompanying the handwriting a year ago, right after the Kerberos mission vanished.

What was he supposed to wait for? Syaoran had checked all the astronomical charts, and none of them anticipated any eclipses, meteor showers, or comet flybys tonight. It was quiet. The rumble of machinery on standby mingled with the sounds of the desert at night. Somewhere to the west of where he sat, a coyote took up a yipping howl.

The stars glittered.

Syaoran stared at a cluster of stars above him, trying to name them.

Wait… Was that star brighter than usual? He grabbed his binoculars and pointed them at the constellation, twisting the dial to focus them. The HUD flashed with the words "unidentified object" in glowing green letters. Torn between fascination and horror, Syaoran watched as the unusual glow separated from the star behind it. He realized, as it grew in size and brightness, that it was some sort of meteor... and it was heading towards him.

Klaxons rang, startling Syaoran into dropping his binoculars. The neck strap caught on his wrist and wrenched it, but he paid it no mind as the object crashed to Earth on the far side of a ridge only a few miles to the north. The PA system announced that all students must return to their dormitories. Drowning out the loudspeakers, several ATVs roared to life from the nearby garage and raced into the desert. Syaoran ignored the PA and memorized their route before sprinting to the stairwell. This, whatever it was, must be what he'd come outside for.

Maybe he was seeing things, but he would swear the meteor had looked like a ship as it disappeared behind that ridge.

* * *

Fai crouched near his hoverbike and watched the Garrison scientists and security milling around like so many ants. He had to give them credit; they’d been remarkably efficient at setting up their portable lab-slash-containment unit once they'd arrived at the crash site. They'd only beaten him here by a couple of minutes, but by then there had been no way he could have slipped past them and into the quarantine tent. Time to go with Plan B.

He grinned. All of his chemistry degrees made him proficient with explosives.

The explosion detonated far enough away from the crash site to avoid hurting anyone but was more than flashy enough to draw their attention. Right on cue, everyone save for two guards at the lab entrance got back onto their ATVs and sped off to investigate. Fai jumped out from his rocky hiding place and ran for the entrance. He wondered what he'd find inside.

The guards went down quickly, distracted as they were. Inside, three scientists leaned over an examination table with a body on it. Fai couldn't see the person's face and had no time to look before the scientists realized he’d entered.

"What are you doing here?" one of them asked, incredulous, right before Fai struck the nerve on his neck and made him crumple. The other two didn't put up much of a fight either. Fai pulled the scarf down from over his nose and exhaled. Turning to the examination table, his blood ran cold. He rushed to lean over it and inspect the man strapped there.

“Kuro-tan?” His voice cracked as he gazed down at Kurogane Yōō. The man was deeply asleep — sedated, no doubt. He looked ragged and careworn compared to the pilot Fai remembered from before the Kerberos mission. Fai had to fight to control his breathing as he spotted the strange prosthesis in place of Kurogane’s left arm. It didn’t look like any technology the Garrison used. He wore strange, ragged clothing which didn’t match Fai’s memories of his uniform or spacesuit.

The straps unfastened easily. Fai hauled Kurogane off the table, draped the man’s right arm over his shoulders, and attempted to drag his dead weight towards the exit before anyone returned. Fai’s chest tightened. Before the Kerberos mission, he never could have held Kurogane up like this. The pilot had lost a lot of muscle mass since he’d left.

Questions raced through his head faster than he could form them into words, but he knew he’d have to wait until Kurogane woke to ask any. In the meantime, they had to get somewhere safe.

Footsteps thumped towards him, halting too close for comfort. Fai looked up in alarm. However, instead of another Garrison guard, Li Syaoran stood in the doorway. Fai nearly staggered in relief. Syaoran had found his note and done as Fai had asked.

“Professor Fluorite?” Syaoran asked, wide-eyed and bewildered. “What are you — Oh my God, is that Professor Kurogane? How—?”

“Good to see you found my note, Mr. Li,” Fai said, forcing false cheer into his tone, “but I don’t think this is the place for this conversation. If you help me get Kuro-chan onto Tsubame-go, I’ll explain what I can.”

“What?” Syaoran blinked in befuddlement as he ducked under Kurogane’s false arm and helped Fai guide the man out of the makeshift lab.

“My bike. It’s behind those rocks.” Fai jerked his head in the general direction. Catching on, Syaoran helped Fai haul the unconscious pilot over to the boulders and onto his hoverbike. Fai jumped on the moment they had Kurogane safely on the back.

Shouting and rumbling caught his attention. It looked like his distraction had lost its effectiveness. Garrison ATVs sped back towards the crash site.

“Oops, time to run!” he chirped. “Hold on, Mr. Li, and please make sure Kuro-pon doesn’t fall off!”

He clutched the handles in his gloved palms, revved the bike, and sped out from behind the rocks. The cacophony of the engine and the wind drowned out Syaoran’s confused cries and the shouts of alarm from the Garrison personnel. Fai cackled, feeling more hopeful and alive than he had since the Kerberos mission first left Earth.

* * *

“I can’t believe you flew through the arroyo so fast without crashing!” Syaoran gasped the words as they dragged Professor Kurogane into the sole bedroom of Professor Fluorite’s tiny house in the desert. “I hope Professor Mihara is alright after Professor Grosum crashed into him like that…”

Professor Fluorite smiled at the teen and lowered Professor Kurogane onto the double bed.

“He’ll be fine, but he’ll definitely milk this opportunity to make his wife and daughters nurse him back to health.”

Syaoran watched his erstwhile chemistry professor as he tucked a blanket around Professor Kurogane’s shoulders. The unconscious man was too tall for the bed, leaving his bare feet to dangle off the end. They were covered in filth, bruises, and scars. Biting his lip, Syaoran tried to put his thoughts into words.

“Um. Professor Fluorite—”

“Please, Mr. Li, call me Fai. I’m not a professor anymore,” the man said, offering him a small, melancholy smile. Syaoran returned it with a slight smile of his own.

“In that case, you can call me Syaoran.” His lips twitched up in relief when Prof — when Fai gave him a ‘fair enough’ shrug. When he opened his mouth, Syaoran intended to ask one of his myriad of questions, but the man’s shoulders tensed. He sighed. “May I sleep on your couch tonight? I don’t know how to drive your bike. Or which direction the Garrison is.”

Fai’s smile fell until it was the barest upturn at the corner of his mouth.

“Of course. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” He reached out and smoothed a hand over Kurogane’s disheveled black spikes of hair. It was much longer than Syaoran remembered from before the man left for Kerberos, and it looked ragged, as though he’d tried cutting it with a blade at some point.

Feeling like he was intruding on something private, Syaoran nodded. Exhaustion crept through his limbs without adrenaline to sustain him. He thought wistfully of his bed back in the dormitory, but he was too curious to leave now. Mumbling a hasty, “It’s alright,” he fled the bedroom and snuggled up on the couch, wrapping the throw blanket around his torso.

It took him nearly an hour to calm his mind long enough to fall asleep.

* * *

_ Syaoran gazes around the endless black expanse, unable to discern where the surface he stands on separates from the darkness overhead. He can still see his own body, but no one else. Below him, his reflection stares back from beneath the glossy floor.  _

_ A prickling on the back of his neck, as if someone is watching him, makes him whip his head around. A small flame hovers inches above the reflective floor. Glinting in the gloom, it draws Syaoran towards it. It grows as he nears, swirls of flame coalescing into a living form. _

_ A large wolf stands before Syaoran, flames dancing around its clawed feet. A golden horn on its forehead glints in the wolf’s self-made light. Somehow, Syaoran thinks the wolf can see beneath his skin with its piercing amber eyes. _

_ “I am the master of flame.” The wolf’s voice is deep and resonant, reaching into Syaoran’s bones. “I have been awaiting my paladin for a long time.” _

_ “Paladin? What does that mean?” Syaoran meets the wolf’s gaze. _

_ “Come and find me. Then you will learn.” The wolf might be smiling, though the flickering flames of its fur make it hard to tell. “You are the one I have been waiting for.” _

_ Before Syaoran can react, the wolf leaps at him, exploding into flames which churn around him as its claws meet his chest. He cries out, expecting pain, but none comes. _

_ Rather than rending force or the burn of flame, a bone-deep warmth radiates from where the claws touched him. He clutches his hands over his sternum and gasps for breath. When the flames dissipate, the wolf has vanished, leaving Syaoran alone in the dark expanse. _

Syaoran awoke covered in sweat and tangled in the throw blanket. Watery silver light filtered onto the floor from the window above the couch. Despite the perspiration on his skin and the chill of early dawn in the desert outside, an unusual warmth permeated his body. He pressed a hand to his rib cage. Warmth pulsed against his palm in time with his heartbeat.

Sitting up, Syaoran pulled the blanket off his body and stared at his shadow on the floor. Hazy images and impressions swirled around his mind, but when he tried to make sense of them they slipped from his grasp. Had he been dreaming? All he could recall for certain was a comforting heat and a resonant voice. He wished he could remember what it had told him.

With a sigh, he lay back down, draped the blanket back over his legs, and resolved to attempt a few more hours of sleep.

* * *

Fai watched as Kurogane’s eyelids fluttered. The man fought his way into wakefulness. Through the window, the gray light of pre-dawn filtered in and caught on Kurogane’s cheekbones and hair, where new strands of silver interspersed the black.

Fai had dozed off and on, folded into the narrow space left on the bed next to Kurogane. Mostly, however, he had spent the night watching the taller man sleep, unable to believe this was real — that Kurogane was alive and back on Earth with him.

Red eyes peeked out from beneath soft black lashes. Leaning over, Fai tried to make eye contact.

“Kuro-min?” He kept his voice low. Kurogane’s eyes snapped fully open, pupils still dilated from the sedative, and they were wild with panic.

“Don’t!” Kurogane lashed out with his prosthetic arm, not trying to strike Fai so much as to gain distance from an imagined foe. Fai leaped back and stood at the far side of the bed as Kurogane fought with the duvet, legs tangling further the heavier he struggled.

“Kuro-tan, stop! It’s me! You’re safe!” Fai pleaded, holding his hands up in a worthless gesture. Kurogane froze. Labored breathing shook his shoulders, but when he turned his head to face Fai again, recognition lit his eyes.

“Fai?” His voice was quiet and hesitant, and Fai had never wanted to hear Kurogane’s deep voice sound so timid, but hearing his name from that mouth again brought tears to his eyes. He nodded and pressed a hand to his mouth. Once he’d recovered his composure, he dropped it and beamed as brightly as he could. He hardly even needed to fake it.

“Welcome home, Kuro-sama.”

Kurogane’s eyebrows shot up upon hearing an actual honorific from Fai, but he didn’t comment. He said nothing about the half-faked smile or the tears, either, for which Fai silently thanked him.

With slow, deliberate movements, Fai reached out and laid his left hand over Kurogane’s. He was glad he’d removed his gloves after Syaoran left the room last night. The metal was cool and smooth underneath his skin. Kurogane tensed, but he didn’t pull away.

“You’re still wearing your ring?” Kurogane turned his hand over to hold Fai’s, bringing it to eye-level. Fai nodded and squeezed his fingers tighter. Taking his ring off had never been an option. Kurogane frowned and reached up to feel the back of his neck for a sturdy silver chain which was no longer there. “I don’t remember much of what happened. I don’t know when I lost mine. Sorry.”

Fai had noticed that Kurogane no longer had the chain which had held his engagement ring around his neck, but it hadn’t registered in his mind what that meant until now. Shaking his head, he pressed their joined hands to his heart. Rings were replaceable. Kurogane sighed, reached out with his flesh arm, and pulled Fai into a tight hug. Fai sagged into it and clutched at Kurogane’s back, burying his face in the taller man’s shoulder.

He pulled away several minutes later and gave Kurogane a watery smile.

“You smell like you haven’t bathed for an entire year,” he teased, though his tone wasn’t as light as he would have liked. “Why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll throw something together for breakfast.”

Kurogane roughly scrubbed his right hand through Fai’s hair for his comment, but he agreed without fuss and disappeared into the bathroom. Fai made sure his face was dry before heading for the kitchen.

* * *

Kurogane felt much more human now that he was freshly bathed, fed, and wearing actual clothing instead of the rags his captors had provided.

“You kept my clothes?” He tugged at the hem of his black t-shirt with his right hand to inspect it. The gray cargo pants and black boots were also his, though he would have been hard-pressed to say whether they’d been in his or Fai’s laundry when he’d left Earth. He had so many questions. Why was Fai out here, in this shack in the desert? What had happened on Earth while he was gone? “How long has it been?”

Fai grimaced. “The Garrison performed their one-year memorial service last month. They put your name on the wall of honor, along with…” He clenched his jaw and looked down at his fingers, clutching the bedclothes he’d been straightening. Kurogane nodded.

“Is Kendappa okay?” he asked, rather than waiting for Fai to say their names. The blond man gave him a rueful, self-deprecating smile.

“She took it hard, but she also got on with her life far better than I did. But then, she had someone to help her. I — I didn’t have anyone left.” He worried at a loose thread on the duvet. “She invited me to live with her and Sōma, but I couldn’t. She — she had too many photographs on display.”

Kurogane didn’t know how to respond. Fai seldom showed this much emotion. How hard had it been for him, if he was willing to admit to it? 

As Kurogane studied Fai, he watched the old mask slip back into place. The man gathered up his negative feelings and tucked them into a little box for later — or never. Kurogane wanted to scold Fai for falling back into old habits, but the blonde spoke before he could.

“Anyway, there’s a reason I came out here after I left the Garrison. I have something you need to see.”

Fai led Kurogane into the main room where a young man sat awkwardly on the couch next to a pile of folded blankets. An empty plate and mug sat on the coffee table in front of him. After a moment of searching his scrambled memories, Kurogane recognized him from the Garrison — Li Syaoran, a student from Hong Kong. Smart, quick, and willing to learn, if a bit hapless. The boy leaped free of the cushions. His eyes were wide as he hurried to introduce himself.

“Professor Kurogane!” He bowed low, and Kurogane returned the gesture on instinct. “I don’t know if you remember me, but—”

Kurogane huffed.

“Yeah, I remember you. You crashed the flight simulator once and spent the next week’s worth of study hours practicing in it.”

The kid’s face turned pink in embarrassment, but he nodded. A loaded silence stretched out between them. Kurogane’s head was still fuzzy from the sedatives and he wasn’t in the mood for small talk. After another awkward moment, Fai clapped his hands together, drawing their attention.

“Syaoran, you’re interested in archaeology, correct?” He asked. Syaoran nodded, and Fai gave him a wry smile. “Okay, what do you make of these?” He reached out and pulled a large sheet from where it had hung on the wall, revealing a large bulletin board with several indecipherable photographs, hand-written notes, and honest-to-god strands of red yarn connecting them. Kurogane raised an eyebrow.

“What’s with the conspiracy board? Did you somehow lose what’s left of your mind out here in the desert, idiot?” He reached up to scratch his scalp, flinching slightly when the metal digits touched his skin. He hurriedly dropped the hand and hoped Fai hadn’t noticed.

Fai’s smile was pinched and his laugh forced.

“No, Kuro-wan. There’s something out there, and I’ve been trying to find it. The rocks have all these carvings,” he gestured at the photographs, “and there’s this… energy in the air. I can’t quite figure it out, but they all have something to do with some sort of fiery wolf.”

Syaoran peered at the photographs and notes on the board with startling intensity. He muttered as he looked them over. “These carvings  _ look _ like petroglyphs, but the style is totally wrong for the Native Americans who left them in other sites in the area, like Mesa Verde and such. And some of these almost look like Latin characters… maybe the settlers left them? But why…” He kept mumbling, eyes darting between the photos and Fai’s chicken-scratch notes. 

Kurogane peered at one of the pages of notebook paper. It still had the fringe from being hastily torn out of a spiral binding. Fai’s looping cursive was so squashed from hasty writing that Kurogane barely recognized it. Equations interspersed the words, some of which looked like they were in Cyrillic rather than English. Kurogane’s head still hurt too much to look at it for long. 

Syaoran gasped, making Kurogane and Fai jump. The boy grabbed one paper and yanked the pin out to scrutinize it.

“These look like… are these radio signals?” His eyes nearly glimmered when he looked up at Fai. The blonde man nodded and pointed at a section of the scrawled numbers covering the page.

“I’ve had a radio antenna pointed towards Kerberos since I came out here, and in the past week there’s been a sudden burst of activity. At first, I thought it was like the ‘Wow! Signal’, but after I recorded a few more I realized they were encrypted transmissions.” Fai scratched his head. “But not an encryption I’d ever seen before. I’ve only deciphered a tiny bit.”

“Well, what’s it say?” Kurogane leaned over Syaoran’s head to gaze at the numbers, but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what they might mean. Communication and encryptions weren’t his areas of expertise — he was a pilot and engineer for a reason.

“Well, I figured out that it was coming closer from the blue-shift, and they always ended with the same word, like a military report. By yesterday morning, they were nearly on top of us, and I’d deciphered another few words they kept using.” Fai took a deep breath. “They’re looking for something called a ‘Mashin,’ and they’re planning on looking here. On Earth.”

Kurogane’s metal fist clenched. “I swear I’ve heard that word before. It’s something… something powerful.” He looked the other two in the eyes. “Those… whoever they were. The ones who had me. They can’t get it.”

Fai nodded and dug into a towering pile of junk on a nearby desk.

“Syaoran, with his archaeological knowledge and dangerously high levels of curiosity, was about the only person I could think of to help me find it. I planned to meet him on the Garrison roof last night but—” he made a triumphant noise and straightened, brandishing what looked like a Geiger counter, “—The radio went berserk when I was about to leave. I only caught that there was an escape pod headed for us, so I set some bombs just in case. Good thing I did or Kuro-puu here would still be in Garrison custody.”

Kurogane stared at Fai in bafflement and horror. If conspiracy theories and explosives were how his fiance dealt with grief, it was a wonder he’d survived this long. 

“I can’t believe those Garrison assholes drugged me.” Kurogane clenched his fists. “I don’t remember how I got into the wreckage they fished me out of, but I kept trying to warn them about the aliens who had me. The scientists told me I was delusional from the crash, put me on that table, and sedated me. I think they wanted to take this thing apart.” He held up his metal arm and wiggled its fingers. He was almost glad he couldn’t remember losing his real arm.

Fai’s jaw clenched and his eyebrows pulled down in an angry furrow. His fingers tightened on the device in his hands, making the plastic casing creak. The last time Kurogane had seen him make that face was when a sparring partner had accidentally fractured Kurogane’s wrist with a bokken. It promised pain and retribution to the people who’d hurt Kurogane. Unable to think of a way to address the issue without derailing the conversation, he pointed at the Geiger counter.

“Is that gonna take us to this… Mashin, or whatever?”

Fai shrugged.

“I managed to jury-rig this to detect the energy I’ve felt out here, but I’ve never pinpointed the source. That’s where Syaoran comes in.”

“Me?” Syaoran straightened his posture, pulling his shoulders back. He looked wary, but Kurogane noticed a hint of surprised pleasure in the boy’s face at the recognition.

“I think the carvings may tell us how to find this thing if we can learn how to read them. We can use the Geiger counter to make sure we’re still heading in the right direction.” Fai grinned down at him. Syaoran gave him a determined nod in return.

“What a pain,” Kurogane sighed. He went to find a backpack or something. They’d need to bring water if they were going on a fool’s errand in the desert.

* * *

Syaoran studied the wolf carved into the rock in front of him, resisting the urge to run his fingers over it. He was almost sure he’d figured out the pattern. Every time they headed in the direction the wolf’s nose pointed, the Geiger counter got louder and they came across another carving within a few hundred yards. Sometimes the carvings had multiple wolves, which turned them around more than once, but he was learning to spot the most prominent wolf in each scene. He suspected that the wolf represented the energy source they were looking for, though he couldn’t guess why the carvers would have chosen that.

Curiously, the patterns of wear and erosion on the exposed carvings suggested they weren’t more than a few hundred years old, and the style reminded him more of European folk art than the Paleolithic people whose petroglyphs were more well-known. Could the Spanish missionaries or white American pioneers have left these? He rattled off his theories as they walked. From the glazed looks on the faces of the two former professors, he guessed they didn’t share his interest in history, but Fai humored him with encouraging looks. Syaoran appreciated the effort. Kurogane stayed silent and watched their surroundings with wary vigilance.

The trail led them to a small cave entrance. Syaoran was about to duck in, eager to get out of the heat of the late morning sun, but Kurogane stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait, kid. We don’t know what’s in there. The last thing you want is to scare a sleeping bear or mountain lion.”

Syaoran chewed on his lip and backed away, watching as Kurogane picked up a large chunk of sandstone and hurled it into the cave. It clattered noisily, but no other movement or sound came from within. 

After a few breaths of silence, Kurogane nodded. Syaoran pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight, and darted inside. Fai and Kurogane’s footsteps echoed behind his own. More carvings decorated the walls of the cave as it snaked through the rock. Holding his phone’s light up to them, Syaoran tilted his head in consideration.

“We’re close,” Fai said over the crackle of the Geiger counter. “I’ve never seen such a strong signal before.”

“I think these carvings tell a story about the wolf — um, the energy source. Probably the Mashin,” Syaoran leaned closer to inspect one before moving on to the next. “Maybe about why it’s hidden here.”

“Well, does it say where the thing is?” Kurogane bent forward to squint at another wolf carved on the wall. “Because we gotta find it before those bastards in the sky get here.”

“So impatient, Kuro-min!” Fai laughed. Syaoran shook his head and, without meaning to, reached up and brushed a finger along the line of the wolf’s back.

The carving’s lines began to glow red. The light spread to the nearby petroglyphs in a cascade until the whole tunnel flooded with a bright, fiery red glow. Syaoran gasped in surprise. A hole opened in the rock floor beneath his feet and he, Kurogane, and Fai fell. They tumbled into a tube, sliding down an incline which reminded Syaoran of nothing so much as the water slides at the amusement park his cousin had dragged him to as a kid. As the tunnel twisted, the silt under their backs slid and kept the three screaming people from gaining enough traction to stop. Syaoran thought he heard Fai laughing.

The unexpected slide ended, ejecting them into a large cavern. Syaoran rolled to a stop, only to have Kurogane and Fai knock into him, propelled by their own momentum. Syaoran crawled out from the bottom of the pile and shone his flashlight beam around the new room.

“We’re… in a lava tube,” he breathed, walking over to one of the smooth basalt walls and stroking it. It was deep matte black, arching up to a ceiling he could barely see in the dim beam of his phone’s flashlight. Turning to glance back at the others, he found them sprawled on the ground with Fai in Kurogane’s lap. The blond appeared to have no intention of moving.

“Well, where to now?” Kurogane frowned at Fai but made no move to dislodge the man. Fai held up his Geiger counter and shook it. Syaoran realized it had gone silent.

“Well, that’s out,” Fai pouted, setting it aside and looking down the tube in both directions. His frown turned thoughtful. “Syaoran, cover your flashlight for a moment, would you?”

Syaoran stuck the pad of his thumb over the bulb and followed Fai’s gaze down the tube. A faint red glow shone in the distance.

“Well, let’s go,” Kurogane commanded.

Clothes scraped against the stone. Syaoran heard a small thump, followed by Fai’s whine of, “there’s no need to shove me, Kuro-pii!” He uncovered the light and headed towards the glow. As it grew, the energy Fai had described increased in intensity, making the hairs on his arms and neck stand on end. Soon the light became bright enough that Syaoran turned off his flashlight altogether. Sticking his phone back into his pocket, he hurried forward along the lava tube’s smooth stone floor.

A large chamber opened up before them. Syaoran halted on the threshold and gazed in astonishment at the machine sitting in the center. It was a giant red and gold wolf, massive enough to use one of the Garrison fighter jets as a chew toy. A translucent sphere made of shifting hexagons surrounded the machine and glowed a gentle blue. The long golden horn on the wolf’s forehead nearly met the top of the sphere. Syaoran approached with tentative steps. Though the energy from the sphere made his scalp prickle, he brushed a hand over the surface. It was as solid as glass.

“Is that the Mashin?” Fai’s voice floated through the cavern.

Kurogane made a thoughtful hum. “Must be,” he said.

Syaoran stared up at the wolf in wonder. Something like a distant memory tugged at the back of his mind, bringing up dreamlike images of a wolf enrobed in fire. He didn’t know what to make of that.

The metal wolf’s eyes, dark and hidden in shadow, flashed yellow. All three humans cried out in alarm. Syaoran clapped a hand over his eyes as the image of three enormous robotic animals — the wolf, an eagle, and a dragon — invaded his mind. They flew in formation among the stars before another bright flash of light merged them into one massive, humanoid robot. Even in this form, Syaoran still recognized each of its components. The dragon formed the right limbs, the eagle the left, and the wolf formed the body and head. Its eyes gleamed just as the wolf’s had before the vision faded. Blinking, Syaoran lowered his hand and looked at the other two.

“Did… did you see that?” he asked. Kurogane had his eyes squeezed shut, and Fai had a hand on his temple.

“Seems like this is only one of three Mashin,” Fai lowered his hand from his temple to Kurogane’s shoulder. The taller man shook his head, blinked, and frowned up at the wolf.

“Well, we found it, but how do we get to it? And how do we hide it?”

Syaoran turned and studied the sphere — a force field, though one more sophisticated than any the Garrison had.

“We’ll have to find the power source to deactivate the field.” He knocked his hand against it for emphasis. It flickered once, twice, and went out. He blinked at his hand. “Or… not…”

The wolf’s eyes flashed again and Syaoran yelped. Leaping back, he watched in amazement as it stood, leaned forward, and lowered its head to the basalt cavern floor. Its mouth opened to form a gangway leading into the Mashin’s shadowed depths.

“Hyuu! That’s pretty cool!” Fai approached the wolf and stopped next to Syaoran, putting his hands on his hips. Kurogane made a disgusted noise.

“What have I told you about that stupid fake whistling?” He reached out and gently punched Fai on the shoulder with his right hand as he, too, came closer. Syaoran stared at the gangway. A strange feeling, like a mental tug, had been poking at his brain since they’d entered the chamber, but its strength increased now the barrier had fallen. He thought he heard a voice whispering to him, beckoning him into the wolf’s body. Was it talking to him?

Without making a conscious decision, Syaoran strode towards the wolf and into its mouth.

“Oi, what are you doing?” Kurogane reached out to grab his arm, but Syaoran had already jogged past him up the gangway by the time he registered the fingers brushing his sleeve. Safety lights lit up one by one as he neared them to illuminate the incline and its sharp, one-hundred-eighty degree turn into the wolf’s head. A door at the top slid open to reveal a cockpit with a pilot’s chair surrounded by dark screens. Syaoran paused. The tugging in his head urged him to sit in the chair. With cautious steps, he approached and did so.

“Kid, you can’t just go into giant alien machines and sit down in them!” Kurogane scolded him, coming to stand to the left of the chair. “We don’t know what this thing can do.”

Fai went to Syaoran’s other side and peered at the dark screens.

“Not that I’m licensed to fly a spaceship, but shouldn’t there be… buttons?” He gestured at the space below the screens, where two pedals sat in a footwell without a dashboard above them.

“Maybe you fly it with these?” Syaoran nodded at the handles — one on each side of the chair — which attached to levers coming out of the floor. He put a hand on each of them and yelped when the chair jerked forward.

The screens lit up and a holographic dashboard appeared above Syaoran’s knees. While the three humans yelled in surprise, the Mashin’s not-voice in Syaoran’s head sent him waves of excitement and anticipation, urging him to push them into flight. Graphs, numbers, and words written in unknown characters flashed across the screens over an image of the cavern.

“Kid, what did you do?” Kurogane grabbed Syaoran’s wrist — not hard enough to hurt, but there was a hint of warning in the gesture as the man tried to pull the smaller hand from the lever. Syaoran stammered out nonsense meant to be an apology. To his dismay, the not-voice’s urging in his head got stronger, making coherent words difficult.

“Kuro-rin, don’t hurt him!” Fai reached over Syaoran’s head and put his hand on Kurogane’s shoulder. Syaoran wanted to put his hands over his ears to block out the wolf’s presence, but he couldn’t release the handles. Frustrated, he pushed them both forward and gave in to the urging. Kurogane’s hand fell from his wrist and gripped the back of the pilot’s chair as the cockpit shook. Onscreen, the view shifted as the wolf stood, shook its body, and ran into the lava tube.

The twists and turns of the tunnel blurred past them as the wolf picked up speed. Kurogane’s angry screaming and Fai’s whoops of delight filled the cockpit. A wall loomed ahead of them — a dead end. They were about to crash, and Syaoran didn’t know how to stop this thing. Right before impact, a torrent of fire blasted the rock into mere gravel, clearing a path and sending them out into the open air of the desert outside. Syaoran felt the wolf’s joy, excited by the thrill of freedom as it leaped into the air. The arroyos and scrublands below them rushed by in a nauseating smear of color.

“How are you flying this thing, kid? Land it!”

Syaoran leaned his head back against the chair and looked up at Kurogane. The man looked shaken and pale, and Syaoran felt a little guilty about listening to the wolf’s urging instead of Kurogane’s reasonable concerns.

“I — I don’t know how,” Syaoran said. “The wolf is… he’s in my head. He needed my help to get out of there.”

“It’s talking to you?” Fai leaned over his right shoulder and looked him in the eye. Syaoran shook his head.

“Not with words, exactly, but I’ve felt — well, his emotions, I guess, in my head since we walked into the cavern. It’s—” Around them the screens flashed red and an alarm blared, cutting Syaoran off. The HUD brought up a map with a green dot and a red dot. They watched the red dot head straight for the green one. He couldn’t read the language the warnings were in, but Syaoran still knew what it meant. “They’re coming.”

Kurogane growled low in his throat. Syaoran and Fai looked up at him, but his red eyes glared at the dot on the HUD.

“They can’t come to Earth.” His hand shook as he gripped the headrest tighter. “They destroy and enslave other planets. If they came for this robot we’re in, they’ll follow us if we lead them away.”

“I’ve always wanted to be bait!” Fai chirped. The Mashin seemed in full agreement with Kurogane’s plan, and they gained altitude.

“You got a better idea?” Kurogane snapped at him.

The sky darkened for every second they climbed. Soon, stars dotted the screen as the atmosphere thinned. A ship, larger than any the Garrison had ever built, hung in the sky above them. Its design was all sharp angles, gunmetal gray with purple lights. A shiver ran down Syaoran’s back at the sight.

“That’s them.” Kurogane leaned forward and glared at the screen. “The ones who had me. They’re the ones searching for the Mashin.”

Syaoran stared at the ship and focused on the wolf’s emotions as they ran through his head. The wolf made a suggestion and he nodded. When a button on the holographic dashboard lit up, he reached out and tapped it. The button was as solid as the force field around the wolf had been. It flashed green and another burst of fire shot from the wolf — the horn, Syaoran thought — and slammed into the enemy ship. The Mashin shot past the vessel as it rocked from the impact.

The wolf flew so swiftly that they barely had time to appreciate the view of the planets as they passed, though the wolf wove through the gaps in Saturn’s rings to dodge return fire from the ship behind them.

“It’s gaining on us,” Syaoran fretted, desperately searching all the buttons and displays for an answer.

“Running from an alien warship to the edge of the solar system wasn’t how I imagined today would go!” Fai was laughing as he clutched the headrest and Kurogane’s shoulder. “I would‘ve packed more granola bars if I had!”

“We’re  _ in  _ an alien warship,” Kurogane growled. “Why not turn around and fight?”

The wolf didn’t like that idea, if the slight edge of fear lacing his mental link with Syaoran was any sign.

“The wolf can’t destroy the ship alone,” the boy said. “We’d need the other two Mashin for that.”

The wolf howled, and the noise reverberated in the cockpit.

On the left, Pluto and its moons sped by. Syaoran was about to remark on how quickly they’d arrived. After all, the Garrison’s fastest ship had taken months to arrive with Kurogane and his crew. He'd barely opened his mouth when a flash of light interrupted him. Ahead of them, a glowing circle materialized against the blackness of interstellar space. The perimeter and the patterns inside were all drawn in delicate, multicolored threads of light. At the center of the geometric lines and concentric circles sat a five-pointed star with a sun to the right and a moon to the left. The inside of the star shimmered with a hazy fog, streaks of color rippling within. The wolf, clearly recognizing the strange circle, sped up and headed straight for it.

“What is that?” Kurogane demanded.

“I don’t know, but the wolf wants to go through it!” Syaoran wanted to pull back on the control levers, to slow the wolf down and give them some time to think, but the ship behind them was shooting at him and the wolf was begging him to guide them through the strange circle. “I think it’s a wormhole!”

“Where does it go? Where’s this ship taking us?” Fai didn’t sound concerned, but when Syaoran looked up at him, his eyes were tight and narrowed. Syaoran wished the wolf could talk to him in words so he could give Fai a concrete answer.

“I’m not sure,” Syaoran confessed. “But I think he’s trying to go home.”

Nobody responded or protested as the wolf flew through the shimmering pentagram. 

When the light around them faded, a new planet hung in the space ahead. The stars had changed positions and the enemy ship had disappeared entirely. The planet they’d arrived at them looked a lot like Earth, but the shapes of the landmasses were completely different. As the wolf carried them towards it, he broadcasted relief and joy at coming home into Syaoran’s head. Despite his apprehension, the boy felt an answering smile creep onto his face. He let the Mashin guide his movements to steer them down onto the planet’s surface.

* * *

Fai watched Syaoran with concern as the boy guided the ship down into the strange planet’s atmosphere. He looked focused and fully aware of his surroundings, but something in his eyes had changed when the barrier around the wolf fell. He looked like he was aware of more than what his eyes could see. 

Hopefully, having a mashin talking in his head wouldn’t hurt Syaoran. Since Fai’s note had brought the boy into this mess, his safety was Fai’s responsibility.

He glanced at Kurogane and fought to keep a frown off his face. The man hadn’t been on earth twenty-four hours before hurtling right back into space. He deserved a chance to rest and heal from whatever had happened to him over the past year. Instead, Fai had dragged him back into danger to satisfy his own curiosity. He wondered if the wolf’s destination would be hostile to three humans. At least this time, if they got into a bad situation, Kurogane had Fai with him to watch his back.

They landed in another desert, but the landscape was far different from what they’d left behind. Instead of arroyos and sandstone, golden dunes stretched to the horizon. Only two landmarks broke the monotony — a city topped with a shining castle, and a pair of towers rising like wings from the sand. The wolf settled in front of the towers and crouched, opening his mouth for them to disembark.

After a brief discussion debating the merits of setting foot on an alien planet without breathing equipment, they realized their only other choice was to stay in a robotic wolf which had no plans to leave. The sand was soft and hot beneath their feet, radiating the warmth it absorbed from the planet’s star. Up close, the wing-like towers were old and weathered, reminiscent of ruins from an ancient civilization. Their tips reached into the sky and framed a gibbous moon. Fai wondered if it was the only one the planet had.

A set of large stone doors loomed as the only entrance to the ruins. Sand buried most of the stairway leading to them, leaving the threshold mere inches from the dune. As far as Fai could tell, the doors had no handles or locks. He stared up at the wolf. Laying on the sand like a sphinx, the Mashin stared at the towers before them.

“You said he wanted to come home.” Fai raised an eyebrow at Syaoran. “But I don’t think he’d fit through those doors.” The boy tilted his head and frowned at the ruins.

“There has to be something in there,” he murmured. “The wolf wouldn’t have brought us here otherwise.”

“May as well look, I guess.” Kurogane shrugged. “Better than sitting around.”

Carefully, aware that anything could be hiding beneath the sand, Fai stepped up to the threshold and tested his weight against one of the doors. Kurogane joined him and pushed on the other, but neither budged.

“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Kurogane kicked at the door. Behind them, the wolf got to its feet. Fai’s chest seized with panic. Would he fly away and leave them stranded here?

The wolf threw his head back and howled. The sound echoed through the dunes and from the towers above them, shaking sand loose from the grooves in the stone to sprinkle onto them in thin rivulets. With a scraping, groaning noise, the doors opened into the ruins. All three humans peered into the darkness.

“The sooner we go in there, the sooner we can figure out what the hell is going on,” Kurogane declared, before stomping through the doorway. Fai, determined not to lose sight of his fiance so soon after getting him back, grabbed Syaoran’s hand and dragged him in.

The ruins had a vestibule just inside the doors. Columns sprouted from the floor at regular intervals, reaching into the darkness above them. Torches flared on the two centermost lines of columns as the humans drew near, illuminating a path. Fai startled when Syaoran pulled his hand away and took his phone from his pocket. The boy shifted back into archaeologist mode, rushing to the front of the group with his flashlight blazing.

“Don’t get too far ahead,” Kurogane warned. Syaoran nodded, but Fai could tell his attention was fixed on the path before them. The blonde looped his right arm through Kurogane’s left — he hadn’t missed how the taller man avoided using his metal one, but they both needed to keep their dominant hands free — and leaned in to murmur in his ear.

“We’d better stay alert.” He peered up at his fiance. Kurogane’s red eyes were clear and focused — no traces of any lingering sedative. Fai wished he’d thought to bring a more useful weapon than the hunting knife on his hip. He unstrapped the scabbard from his belt and held it out to Kurogane. “You’re better with blades than I am. And your reach is longer.”

Kurogane nodded and took it in his free hand. Fai couldn’t help but feel grateful Kurogane hadn’t lost his dominant arm, even as he scolded himself for the thought. He was grateful the man had come back to him at all.

The torch-lit path led them down a long, winding staircase to another large set of double doors. They were pale sandstone and looked like they’d be too cumbersome to open. A carved crest shaped like a stylized set of wings spread across them.

Syaoran reached out and brushed a finger along one feather on the carving. As with the petroglyphs in the cave on Earth, the crest lit up beneath his hand. Fai grabbed Syaoran’s shirt collar and braced for the floor to open beneath their feet again. His other arm clutched tighter around Kurogane’s. To his relief, the floor stayed put and the doors in front of them opened with a low creak.

The room within was beautiful. Soft floating motes of light reflected off of the lake at the base of the twin staircase. From several ledges at varying heights, waterfalls poured into the room and filled the air with gentle splashing noises. The trio entered and descended the stairs with careful footsteps. Even Kurogane seemed loath to shatter the ambiance.

A path of barely submerged stepping stones led to a dais in the water’s center. Their feet made small splashes and ripples as they crossed. Though they had to pass over in single file, Fai kept a solid grip on Kurogane’s hand as the man brought up the rear. 

Water lapped at the raised sides of the dais, but the surface was dry. Syaoran stopped in the center. Turning in a slow circle, he scanned the flat sandstone below his feet. Fai stared up at the vaulted ceiling, eyes tracking the path of one waterfall upwards to where it melted into the gloom above. One of the floating lights drifted by, passing mere inches above his head. He reached up, but his fingers passed through it, meeting no heat or solid center. 

A sound like air escaping a valve broke the silence and made the trio tense at the abrupt noise. At the far edge of the dais, three holes opened in the stone and a fogged glass cylinder rose from each. Each was tall and broad enough to fit even Kurogane within. Syaoran rushed forward to investigate the leftmost cylinder. Fai wondered if he imagined the faint silhouettes inside.

“Don’t touch it,” Kurogane warned. Fai privately acknowledged that, so far, Syaoran touching things had led to most of the unnatural events which had taken place today. The boy gave them a sheepish smile and kept his hands tucked behind his back.

As it turned out, Syaoran didn’t need to touch anything. The cylinder in front of him hissed, making him leap back with a yelp. The outer shell sparkled and dissolved from the bottom up, revealing a young girl in a flowing white dress. She leaned against the back of the tube, eyes closed and face peaceful. Her chin-length hair fanned around her head in a golden halo. 

Fai stepped forward, intending to check for breathing or a pulse or any sign of life, but her eyes flew open and she lurched forward with a startled cry. Her bare foot caught on the lip of the cylinder and she stumbled forward, arms pinwheeling. With a loud rustle, a burst of gold feathers unfolded from her back and two broad wings flapped violently. Syaoran lunged forward and caught her around the waist. She sagged into his chest and gripped his shoulders with delicate hands.

The winged girl peered up at Syaoran with dazed green eyes. Fai tilted his head. Her pupils reflected pink in the low light. Tufts of gold feathers at her ears unfolded from beneath her hair and twitched.

“Who… who are you? Where am I?” she asked. Syaoran’s face turned brilliant scarlet.

“I’m Syaoran and… I have no idea.”

She tilted her head.

“Your ears…” she reached up and poked the shell of Syaoran’s left ear. “They’re so bald…”

Syaoran jerked his head away from the contact and glowered.

“Well, they work just fine,” he pouted. “They heard exactly what you said about them.”

The girl’s face turned the same shade as Syaoran’s and she pushed away from him, staggering and flapping her wings to regain her balance. Her hands betrayed her discomfort as she smoothed down her skirt. It only reached her knees in the front, but a long train and two wide sash tails trailed behind her. Fai hoped she didn’t step backward further and trip on them. Her green and pink eyes flitted to Fai and Kurogane before returning to Syaoran.

“I’m so sorry! I’m Princess Sakura, of the planet Clow.” She bowed deeply to the three humans. They returned it and she straightened, looking around. “Oh, we’re in the ruins!” Her brows furrowed in concern and her wings fluttered. “I don’t remember how I got here…”

Fai glanced at the two remaining tubes beside the one Sakura came out of.

“Are there people in those as well?” he asked, gesturing toward them with his free hand. Sakura glanced behind herself and yelped. Pressing a palm against the surface of the middle one, she peered inside. Fai couldn’t tell what she was doing as she tapped against the glass-like cylinder. Now that she was steady on her feet, she folded her wings neatly against her back. Their color matched her hair, but the banding and shape reminded Fai of a mourning dove.

The front of the tube sparkled and evaporated the same way Sakura’s had. Inside, a tall young man slept. Had he been human, Fai would have guessed he was in his early twenties. The man’s wings unfurled as he woke. He stretched them and his arms out to his sides and groaned. Like Sakura, his feathers matched his hair color — a rich black with hints of brown.

“Tōya!” Sakura cried, jumping forward to wrap her arms around him. He grunted and blinked down at her.

“What’s going on, Monster?”

“We’re in the ruins, but I don’t remember coming here!” Sakura pressed her face into his heavy tunic, muffling her words. “Tōya, why were we in the healing pods? Where are Father and Yukito?”

Sakura’s question snapped Tōya from his half-awake daze. His ear tufts perked up and he stiffened, glanced at the tube Sakura had occupied, then to the only one left unopened. Lurching forward, he rushed to slam a hand against its surface. It opened and another young man fell out into Tōya’s waiting arms. He was shorter than Tōya, with silver hair and feathers. A pair of large glasses sat hooked over his ear tufts. Unlike his comrades, he showed no signs of waking.

“Yuki?” Tōya shook him gently. Sakura made a small worried noise and stood nervously behind the pair. Tōya grimaced. “He’s breathing, but something’s wrong with his magic. It’s barely there.”

Tōya’s strength gave out and he staggered under the weight in his arms. Fai stepped forward, taking Yukito from him and lowering the sleeping man to the ground while Sakura put her arms around Tōya’s waist. 

“Who are you?” Tōya stared at Fai as if he hadn’t noticed the presence of the human trio before. Perhaps he hadn’t, preoccupied as he was. He pushed Sakura behind him and flared his hawk-like wings in an aggressive display. “Get away from him. How did you get in here? Where is King Clow Reed?”

Syaoran held up his hands placatingly while Kurogane gripped the knife scabbard harder. Fai elected to exercise the better part of valor and set the sleeping man in his arms onto the stone below before he backed up to stand next to Kurogane. Eyeing the sword at Tōya’s hip, he put an arm in front of Syaoran and hoped things didn’t get violent.

“We, ah, we come in peace?” Fai smiled at the winged aliens — though he supposed he and his companions were the aliens in this situation — and ignored his fiance’s exasperated groan. Why mess with the classics?

“I’m Syaoran. These are my… um… my friends, Kurogane and Fai.” Syaoran gestured to the two in question. “A giant robotic wolf brought us here from Earth. We don’t know anything about this place.” Tōya’s posture morphed to show his shock, and Sakura darted out from behind him, ear tufts raised and quivering.

“You have Rayearth?” She took Tōya’s hand and tugged on it to get his attention. “Tōya, what’s going on? The last thing I remember, we were in the castle and Father was talking about hiding the Mashin. What happened?”

Tōya looked down at her and pinched his lips together. His eyes darted between her, the humans, and Yukito, who was still asleep at his feet. His ear tufts drooped.

“Rayearth wouldn’t have brought you three here if you were our enemies.” He eyed the knife in Kurogane’s metal hand and raised an eyebrow. “Though it looks like you’ve already met them. We have to get to the castle.”

A high pitched trill like a waking cat caught their attention. Sakura peered into the tube she’d been in and squeaked.

“Mokona!” She reached in and gathered up what looked like a double handful of white fluff. When she turned to show it to Tōya, Fai caught a glimpse of long rabbit ears and a red gem. Tōya’s shoulders relaxed a little further at the sight. Maybe this creature was their pet, Fai mused, and he’d worried about its safety.

Tōya crouched to pick up Yukito, but he wobbled and nearly fell over on top of his friend instead. Sakura yelped out his name and put a hand on his shoulder, clutching Mokona close to her chest with the other. Palm pressed to his forehead, Tōya groaned. Kurogane handed the knife back to Fai, stepped forward, and picked Yukito up. He draped the young man over his shoulder and nodded for Tōya to lead. Tōya looked like he wanted to snatch Yukito away, but he merely frowned, nodded, and stood. He swept past them with a rustle of feathers and a swish of his cloak. With a nervous smile to the group, Sakura gestured for them to follow. Her bare feet splashed on the stepping stones as she caught up to Tōya.

“You carried me like that once, Kuro-myu, remember?” Fai chirped as he trailed behind his human companions. Kurogane snorted.

“More than once, idiot. You were just drunk off your ass for most of them.”

Fai giggled. “Did you use all of those times as an excuse to touch my ass or just the night I sprained my ankle?”

Tōya shot Kurogane an alarmed and outraged look, as if he thought Kurogane might do the same to Yukito. Kurogane was too busy blushing and yelling at Fai to notice.

“Why would I need an excuse?” he barked. “Besides, you’re the one who’s always pretending to drop things in front of me and bending over to grab them in. You’re not subtle!”

“Only for you, Kuro-chan.” Fai cackled and patted him on the shoulder. Syaoran looked like he desperately wished he could unhear their conversation.

“You are such a pain!”

When they exited the ruins, the wolf stood from its supine position and lowered his head to greet them. Tōya ran a hand across the metal muzzle and murmured something inaudible to it before he turned and eyed the three humans.

“Which of you piloted him?” he asked. Syaoran stepped forward and placed a hand over his chest.

“I did.”

Tōya’s eyebrows and ear tufts both raised, a small sneer curling on his lip. Sakura stomped on his foot. With her bare foot on his booted one, it did little damage, but he still shut his mouth without saying anything disparaging.

“Fine. Take us to the castle and we’ll figure out what happened here. Rayearth knows where the hangar is.”

The Mashin opened his mouth and they piled into the cockpit. As they flew, Sakura watched the screens, worry furrowing her brow. She held the ball of fluff to her chest. It let out a loud snore every few breaths.

“Tōya, where is everyone?” She gazed at the empty city they flew over. Nothing, save for a few shifting piles of sand, moved below them. Tōya didn’t answer.

* * *

The castle was made of bright white metal inside and out and had glowing blue design accents along every wall. Its architecture starkly contrasted the stone of the ruins. Each door opened with a quiet whoosh when Tōya placed his hand on the corresponding control panel in the wall, and every room they passed through was utterly deserted. It didn’t look like anyone had been here for a long time. 

The group split up after entering the castle through the hangar. Kurogane helped Tōya place the sleeping Yukito in what must have been his bed while the others headed to what Tōya called “the control room”. The winged man clearly didn’t trust any of the humans, and he kept shooting Kurogane suspicious looks over his shoulder as they walked back to rejoin their group.

Kurogane, for his part, merely raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. The metal of his new arm was cold against his skin, but he refused to flinch. He couldn’t look weak with this unknown alien watched him so closely. Anyway, he would have to get used to the thing and relearn how to fight with it eventually. He wasn’t optimistic enough to believe they’d escaped his captors for good.

Tōya and Kurogane’s awkward sojourn passed quickly, and they soon joined the others in the control room. It was a large circular space with vaulted ceilings and tall windows overlooking the city. A large crystalline structure hung over a raised platform in the center. Under the windows, there was a long built-in structure like a desk, though it was so heavily lit with holographic buttons and keyboards that it resembled the dashboard inside Rayearth. Chairs sat anchored to the floor at regular intervals around the room’s perimeter. Sakura stood before one of the room’s windows with her hands braced against the edge of the desk. She stared into the empty city. Her shoulders shook. Beside her, Syaoran and Fai hovered worriedly while the fluffy “Mokona” creature stood by her right hand and patted her arm. Tōya snarled.

“What did you do to her?” He stalked over to Syaoran and Fai. Kurogane reached out to grab him by the wing before he could get them, but Sakura’s voice made them both freeze.

“Leave them alone, Tōya.” Her voice quavered with tears, but it had a note of steel to it. Mokona made a distressed noise and leaped up to hug her shoulder with their stubby white paws. The girl turned to Tōya. Kurogane frowned when he saw the tear tracks on her face. 

“What happened?” Tōya bent down to her eye level and wiped the tears from her left cheek with his thumb. She took a shuddering breath and clutched her skirt with tight fists.

“Tōya, we’ve been asleep for two hundred orbits. Our father is dead. The only sentient life signatures on the planet are in the castle.” A sob tore from her throat and she wrapped her arms around her brother’s torso, burying her face against his shirt. Tōya looked anguished but unsurprised. Sakura’s voice filled with righteous anger as she spat out her next words. “Fei Wang killed them all!”

Kurogane stiffened at the name. Flashes of blurry memories sprang to the forefront of his mind and he had to press a hand to his forehead to stave off a wave of dizziness, fighting to keep his breathing steady. He felt Fai’s hand on his arm and heard his concerned voice, but couldn’t make out the words.

“I know that name,” Kurogane growled. He thought of a deep voice filled with malice and a glowing red symbol like a bat. “He’s the one who held me and my crew prisoner. He told the ones who captured us to… to…” The harder Kurogane tried to remember, the faster the memories slipped away. He growled in frustration. “I can’t remember.”

He glanced down at Fai’s worried face and did his best to calm his breathing and loosen his shoulders.

“Sorry,” he said. Fai’s frown deepened.

“Kuro-sama…”

Sakura pulled away from her brother and walked up to Kurogane, placing a gentle hand on his metal forearm. He stiffened and had to fight not to pull away. She gave him a sad smile and, from her shoulder, Mokona mirrored it. Unfolding her wings, Sakura reached them out and gently brushed the tips of the primaries against his shoulders. The feathers were cool, dry, and soft against his right shoulder. Kurogane didn’t know what the gesture meant in her culture, but from the look on Tōya’s face, he guessed it wasn’t something one normally did to strangers. He nodded to her in thanks. She stepped back.

“Fei Wang is a cruel and evil man.” She returned to the panel of keyboards and tapped a few buttons. A three-dimensional projection lit up in the center of the room. Several galaxies floated above the floor and, when Sakura pressed another key, colored points with illegible labels dotted the display. A red overlay encircled many of the stars.

“This is a map of all the distress calls the castle received regarding Fei Wang’s attacks since he usurped the emperor of Ceres two-hundred cycles ago,” Sakura said. “We have to assume he has taken over a significant portion of the Local Group. He is power-hungry and ruthless. An attack on your home planet is inevitable if he continues.” She indicated a small dot in a familiar spiral galaxy with no red overlay — yet.

“He was searching for the Mashin,” Syaoran said. Tōya and Sakura stared at him, and he blushed. “There was a warship. They had Kurogane, but he escaped, and then when we found Rayearth we tried to lead them away from our planet and they followed. That is, they did until a wormhole opened up at the edge of the solar system and brought us here.”

“You idiot!” Tōya’s face twisted in both rage and horror. His feathers puffed up and he stood at his full height. “Father hid the three of us in the ruins for a reason — So Fei Wang wouldn’t find us! He hid the Mashin for the same reason! And now you’ve led them straight to us!”

“Tōya, what are you talking about?” Sakura’s voice was small and confused. Tōya gritted his teeth, but his shoulders sagged and his eyebrows drew up in concern when he looked at her.

“Father knew he couldn’t fight off Fei Wang’s forces without using all three Mashin, and he couldn’t risk letting them fall into that man’s hands. He sent them off to hide as far away as they could. Still, he knew Fei Wang would look for them here first.” Tōya clenched his fists and gave his little sister a pleading look. “You wouldn’t go to the ruins, where it was safe, so he had Yukito put you to sleep. The ruins were the only place which could hide our magic from Fei Wang. When I went into the stasis pod, Father promised he would go into the one next to Yuki.”

Sakura swallowed. “But he went to fight Fei Wang instead, didn’t he?” she whispered. “And he lost.”

Tōya nodded. Sakura clenched her fists and gave him a determined glare.

“Well, I’m not gonna run away!” She whirled around and typed furiously on the keyboard. “We have one Mashin, and we can find the others. I won’t let Fei Wang hurt any more people!”

“Sakura, we don’t have paladins for the Mashin.” Tōya backed up when Sakura rounded on him.

“Yes, we do! Rayearth already chose Syaoran, didn’t he? I can feel Fai and Kurogane’s energy. They’re perfect for the other two.” She smacked one last button and the projection lit up with three dots. In the place of a labels each had a small model of a robotic animal floating beside it. The red dot sat under a small version of Rayearth, which broke from its position to bound over to Syaoran. The boy grinned and reached out, passing his fingers through the projection. Sakura smiled and went to stand on the platform amongst the holographic stars. The light made the pink glow in her eyes return.

“Rayearth is the Mashin of fire. He is loyal, brave, and protective. He must have chosen Syaoran because he saw those qualities in him.”

Syaoran reddened at the praise. Kurogane glanced down at Fai, who was watching the projection with intent. Sakura turned her focus to them. With a flick of her hand, she sent the green, four-winged eagle to Fai.

“Fai, this is Windam, the Mashin of air. He is free-spirited, and he can be either gentle or destructive when needed.” Sakura’s mouth twitched upwards. “I suspect you’ll be a good match.”

Kurogane held back a snort. That sure sounded like Fai. Sakura turned her gaze on Kurogane and sent the final holographic Mashin to him. It was a blue serpentine dragon, and it coiled lazily in the air as it hovered above his head. Kurogane considered it with a raised brow.

“Selece is the Mashin of water. He either meets a problem head-on and wears it down, or he slides around it and finds another way to win, but he never quits.” She tilts her head. “You wouldn’t have survived Fei Wang’s imprisonment if you were one to give up.”

Kurogane nods. He still doesn’t remember much of what happened to him over the past year, but he also can’t remember the last time he gave up on anything he cared about.

“Together, these three Mashin combine to form the ultimate robot, capable of defending the universe from any threat!” Sakura waved a hand and, from her shoulders, Mokona giggled as the three holograms flew back together and upwards in parallel. Like in the vision Rayearth had shown them back in the lava tube, the three holograms flashed and, when the light dimmed, they had merged into a single larger robot. He stood proudly in the empty air, brandishing a sword as if challenging Fei Wang and his empire. “The legendary Tsubasa!”

“So where are the other two Mashin?” Kurogane asked. Sakura glanced at the fluffball on her shoulder.

“Mokona, can you sense them? The scanners can only pick up their general location to within a few parsecs.”

Mokona tapped their mouth with a stubby paw. Then they opened their mouth and, to Kurogane’s horror, they spoke.

“Mokona can sense Rayearth outside. Mokona thinks if Mokona went to where the scanners said they might be, Mokona could figure it out.” Mokona’s voice was high and squeaky; exactly the sort of voice you would expect to come out of a creature which looked like a cross between a rabbit and a dumpling.

“It talks?” Kurogane asked, pointing at the creature. Mokona put their paws on what might be their hips and glowered at him. If Kurogane were anyone else he probably would have found that adorable.

“Talking isn’t even one of Mokona’s 108 secret techniques!” They sniffed and turned their nose up in a haughty gesture, which might have had more impact if they had a nose. Tōya snorted and stepped up onto the platform beside Sakura.

“We can see that Rayearth is here, on the planet Clow, so we know the scanners are working.” He gestured to the red dot situated near the center of the red overlaid area and to the blue dot sitting outside it. “Selece is here, at the outer rim of the Andromeda galaxy. It looks like the Ceresian Empire’s control hasn’t extended there yet.”

The green dot sat in the center of the projection in a space between the galaxies. Unlike the other two dots, it periodically flashed, darkened, and flashed again. Sakura frowned and poked it. A label popped up, written in the same script as the others.

“Something’s blocking Windam from our scanners.” Tōya put a hand on his hip and pinched the bridge of his nose with the other. His wings sat tense against his back. “You three go retrieve Selece, and I’ll tinker with the scanners. They might need some maintenance after two hundred cycles without it.”

He crossed to the holographic control panel and shut off the projection. With a few more taps, he had the window in front of him functioning as a screen and became deeply engrossed.

“I’ll open the wormhole when you’re ready!” Sakura took Mokona from her shoulder and offered them out to Syaoran. “You’ll need to take Mokona with you, to narrow down your search.”

Syaoran took the creature with only a hint of trepidation in his features, but when Mokona grinned up at him he returned the expression readily. Sakura held her hands out to her sides, palms down, and a glowing circle appeared on the floor below each hand. The circles became small holes and, from either hole, a narrow pillar rose. Each had a glowing orb on top which she rested her hands on. Kurogane took that as the cue to head for the hangar where they’d left Rayearth.

The sun still blazed in the sky above the desert as they left the hangar. Above them, a glowing circle appeared. It was identical to the one they’d gone through to come here. The star in the center was black against the blue sky, but it shimmered with streaks of multicolored light.

_ “I can only hold the wormhole open for a few vargas.” _ Sakura’s voice reverberated through the cockpit, tinny from an unseen speaker.

“What the hell’s a varga?” Kurogane asked. He glanced at Fai, but the blonde shrugged, just as baffled.

_ “It’s one-twentieth of a quintant!” _ Sakura said, cheery and bright. Kurogane sighed and resigned himself to being confused. Thrusting the levers forward, Syaoran once again steered them into the wormhole.

* * *

Fai stared up at the decrepit building before them. They stood on a tiny rocky outcropping in the middle of a planet covered in ocean. The building reminded him of a temple, but Rayearth’s scanners couldn’t pick up any trace of sapient beings on the surrounding archipelago who could have built it. Mokona insisted the second Mashin lay inside. The carvings of a large dragon which littered the rocks and the stone walls before them made it hard to argue. Fai’s mind flashed back to the time he and Kurogane had watched every single Indiana Jones film together. Between make-out sessions they’d had a lively debate about how unrealistic the booby traps were, but now he had to wonder.

“Right.” Kurogane held his hand out to Fai. “Gimme the knife.”

Fai took the scabbard from his belt and handed it to Kurogane, who made short work of strapping it onto his own.

“I’ll be right back.” Kurogane strode to the temple’s entrance.

“Wait — Kuro-pon, you can’t just go in alone! What are you thinking?” Fai grabbed the back of his t-shirt. Kurogane gave him a sardonic smirk.

“My sisters always made me beat the water temple for them when they replayed that one Zelda game. I got this.”

Fai scowled at Kurogane for being so flippant, but ultimately, he let go of his fiance’s shirt and watched him stalk into the ruined temple. 

“I do love to watch him go,” Fai sighed, attempting to distract himself from the worry already clawing at his chest. He just got Kurogane back. Shouldn’t he be sticking as close to him as humanly possible?

Syaoran looked up at Fai with concerned brown eyes. “Shouldn’t we go help him? We don’t know what’s in there. He could get hurt.”

“It could be dangerous!” Mokona chirped from where they clung to Syaoran’s shoulder.

Fai gave Syaoran his best unconcerned smile and patted him on his unoccupied arm. In truth, he agreed with Syaoran’s concerns, but he’d long since learned that interfering with Kurogane when the man put his mind to something only resulted in a shouting match and Kurogane doing the thing anyway, but with more anger. It had taken several arguments and nights spent with one of them on the couch for that lesson to sink in.

“I trust him,” was all Fai said.

Half an hour later, a loud metallic roar shook the rocks and the temple walls. Fai and Syaoran stood from their seats on Rayearth’s paws and waited, tense and nervous.

A shining blue blur shot up from behind the temple and into the sky. It soared above, looping through the air before diving low and landing on the crumbling stone roof. It was a massive mechanical dragon, resplendent in the sunlight. The head lowered to peer at them.

_ “You two gonna stand there all day?” _ Kurogane’s voice rang out from the dragon’s head. Fai’s mouth twisted into a mischievous smile and he beckoned for the Mashin to lower his head further.

“Got room for one more?” he asked. Selece opened his mouth, allowing Fai to jump in and scurry into the cockpit. Kurogane gave him a triumphant smile from the pilot’s chair before turning back to the controls.

“Let’s get back before that wormhole closes.” Kurogane waited until Syaoran and Mokona were safely inside Rayearth before steering Selece upwards and out of the atmosphere.

Once back on Clow, they hurried out of the hangar and back to the control room. Sakura sat in one of the chairs, humming and staring out the window, her wings draped over the low backrest. She greeted them with a bright smile and hopped up. Mokona leaped forward and she caught them with a laugh.

“Tōya,” she said, pressing a button on the control panel. “They’re back.”

Soft static filled the air before Tōya’s voice answered with a soft, “I’ll be right there.”

Sakura nodded and turned back to the humans.

“He went to go check on Yukito while you were gone.” A frown crossed her features and her ear tufts drooped. “We can’t figure out why he hasn’t woken. Tōya says his magic is too weak, but the stasis pod should have helped him recover if he’d used too much of it before entering…”

“Do you have magic, Sakura?” Fai hilted his head at her. She had an energy about her which felt like a summer wind bringing in a thunderstorm. He wondered if the others could feel it or if he’d spent too much time around Rayearth’s energy in the desert. Sakura brightened.

“Oh, yes! It’s not as strong as my father’s magic is — was —” She bit her lip, but soldiered on. “But I’m the one who can use the teludav to open wormholes, and I can feel people’s life forces. That’s how I knew you would be perfect for the Mashin!”

Syaoran looked like he wished he had a journal to take notes. Tōya swept into the room before he could ask any questions, but perhaps that was for the best. The look on the winged man’s face indicated that he wasn’t in the mood to dole out any answers. Though he tried to project an air of detached calm, a deep crease remained between his eyebrows and his mouth pulled downward at the corners.

“Well, we have good news and bad news.” Tōya crossed the room and lit up the projection screen again. It zoomed in, focus sharpening on a tiny model of the planet Clow and the surrounding solar system. A green dot lit up at the far edge. “The good news is that the sensors located Windam, and he’s close enough to get a solid read on his location.”

“And the bad news?” Kurogane asked. Fai had a sinking feeling rapidly taking up residence in his gut. With a grimace, Tōya pulled up an image onto the center window-cum-screen.

“He’s in this Ceresian warship currently heading for Clow.”

The ship on the screen was unmistakable. Its port flank had a deep gouge where Rayearth’s blast had struck, revealing the silver metal beneath the black.

“How did they follow us?” Syaoran asked. “They didn’t go through the wormhole with us!”

“Ceres had a rudimentary type of warp drive two hundred orbits ago. They’ve clearly refined it into an effective mode of travel. As for how they knew to come here,” Tōya ruffled his wings, annoyed, “The wormhole Rayearth called up would have been unmistakable. Only Clow had Teludav technology, and each person who opens a wormhole has a different circle.”

“So how did Sakura’s circle appear if she was still asleep?” The question had been bothering Fai since they left to find Selece. Tōya rubbed his forehead and gave them a helpless shrug.

“I can only assume Father stored enough of her power in the crystal to open a single wormhole, should one of the Mashin try to return.” He pointed at the massive ice-blue crystal hanging above the projection. His ear tufts drooped, form shaken by the escape of a dry laugh. “He always had a frightening number of contingency plans at any one time.”

Tōya looked like he had more to say, but the screen interrupted him with a flash of bright yellow text and a tinkling noise.

“Incoming transmission?” Sakura stepped over to stand beside her brother. Reaching out, she pressed a key to accept the call. The image onscreen switched from the Ceresian warship to an image of a humanoid alien with glasses, a long black ponytail, and a smarmy smirk. He was slender with fine bones, but his eyes held a ruthless cunning which belied his youthful appearance. They were obsidian black with no discernable sclera. Sprouting from the hair atop his head, two large batlike ears stood erect. The tip of his nose turned upwards to reinforce the bat image. Fai thought maybe the dark shapes behind the alien could be a folded pair of leathery wings, but it was hard to tell.

_ “Ah, the long-lost heirs of Clow. So good to finally meet you.” _ The man onscreen had a voice as oily as his hair. He sketched a small, mocking bow.  _ “I am Commander Rondart of the Ceresian Empire. I believe you have something which rightfully belongs to our Emperor.” _

Sakura’s feathers puffed in indignation.

“After everything Fei Wang has taken from us, we don’t owe him anything!” She glared at the man onscreen. Tōya tried to land a gentling touch to her shoulder, but she flared her wings out and knocked it away. Onscreen, Rondart shook his head with a small chuckle.

_ “I was hoping you would see the nature of your predicament, Princess, but let me rephrase.” _ He leaned in towards the camera, eyes glinting with malice for all that he was still smiling.  _ “Either you hand over Rayearth willingly, and you and those Earth creatures get to live on as guests of the Emperor… or you don’t, and we will kill you and take him from you anyway. It’s your choice.” _

The image on screen winked out, leaving it as a window once again, looking out over the golden desert. Sakura growled and stomped her foot.

“We’re not giving him Rayearth!” She turned and glared at everyone in the room, daring them to argue. Fai held up his hands to placate her.

“We didn’t think we were,” he said. “But we do need a plan.”

Sakura rustled her wings before folding them back down, mollified for now.

“Come on, Tōya, let’s get them some armor.”

She stalked out of the room, Mokona cheering from their spot on her shoulder. Tōya shook his head and snorted. It was almost a real laugh.

“I may be the de facto king of Clow now,” he said, shaking his head, “But I think we all know she’s in charge.”

No one dared argue with that assessment.

* * *

Sakura left the new paladins to dress in the old paladins’ armor while she changed from her nightgown into more practical clothing. She refused to strategize without shoes. Once dressed, she meant to head back to the armory, but her feet carried her to Yukito’s room instead. She stood in the doorway and watched the sleeping figure on the bed. His chest rose and fell regularly, assuring her he was alive. Yukito’s glasses sat on the nightstand beside the bed.

A frown tugged at Sakura’s mouth as she walked to Yukito’s side. Grasping his hand, she felt for his life force and magic. It was faint and as feeble as a hatchling. Sakura tried to coax it out, but it felt like it was locked away, forcibly shoved down into Yukito’s core.

“Did Fei Wang do this to you?” Sakura whispered. She couldn’t remember the events leading up to her waking from stasis in the ruins. Perhaps Yukito had tried to fight Fei Wang alongside her father before retreating. Sakura clutched his hand tighter and held it to her chest for several breaths before laying it back on the bed.

The Castle’s hallways were long and twisted, but Sakura made her way down to the armory with practiced ease. She had followed her father there many times as a young child, eager to help. He had taught her where every item in the room lived and what they did. Now it was her responsibility to pass on that knowledge to the new paladins.

Inside, she caught sight of the new paladins and felt a stab of grief. Though the color of each armor set was, theoretically, meant to coordinate with the color of the paladin’s Mashin, the new paladins eschewed this tradition in favor of wearing what must be their favorite colors. Sakura had fond memories of her father donning the green and white armor Syaoran now wore, the adaptive plating morphing to seal onto the separate wing armor. She knew Syaoran didn't need those pieces, but seeing the armor on a body without them was surreal.

These Earthlings — Humans, as they called themselves — were a strange species. She’d met other wingless species, of course, but none who looked so close to her own. It was so odd to look at them and see every feature she might on a fellow Clowite except the ear tufts and wings. How did they express their emotions without them? How did they focus their hearing on a single source out of so many? What was it like to be unable to fly under their own power?

Sakura desperately wished she could take back her accidental insult to Syaoran’s ears when she’d first seen him, but hopefully, he could forgive her and blame it on the post-stasis grogginess. She tore her eyes from his armor and went to unlock the most important weapon case in the room.

“The Ceresians know we have Rayearth, but they don’t know we have Selece as well,” Tōya said. “Syaoran, you’ll go to the ship and pretend to surrender while Fai and Kurogane infiltrate it and retrieve Windam. Once Fai has his Mashin, the three of you can form Tsubasa and fight them off. Until then, you’ll have to keep the Ceresians focused on you.”

Syaoran looked apprehensive, but he gave Tōya a determined nod and straightened his posture. The stance combined with the shining green and white armor he wore made him look confident and mature. Sakura’s gaze flicked to Fai and Kurogane. Though they both looked unhappy about the plan, there was little they could do.

“How are your flying maneuvers? Will you be able to dodge their fire?” Tōya asked Syaoran. The boy gave him a shaky smile.

“I haven’t crashed the Garrison’s flight simulator in months, and Rayearth managed to weave through Saturn’s rings without hitting anything or getting hit.”

Tōya frowned, so Sakura interrupted him before he could say something mean again.

“These are your bayards; the traditional weapon of a Mashin paladin.” She held out two bayards; one green, and one blue. They looked like straight black handles with a crescent-shaped, white-and-colored guard on either end, but their simple appearance hid their power. “They become the weapon which will most suit you.”

Kurogane took the blue one. Lighting up, it morphed in his hand. One guard extended into a long, gently curved sword blade with a single shining edge, while the other became a hilt with enough space for two-handed wielding and a pommel for counterbalance. The pommel took the shape of Selece’s head and his scales formed the grip texture on the hilt. Kurogane held it up and grinned as it flashed.

“It looks just like my father’s dai-katana, Ginryuu.”

The way Fai gazed at Kurogane made Sakura feel like she was intruding on something private, so she handed him the green bayard and backed away. It morphed into a beautiful compound bow. Fai plucked the glowing string, giggling at the resultant, satisfying twang.

“How are you supposed to shoot it?” Kurogane gestured at Fai. “You don’t have any arrows.”

“The bayard makes its own arrows, of course.” Tōya rolled his eyes as if this were obvious. “Pull the bowstring back and it’ll nock one for you.”

Fai held his right arm out straight, stance perfectly braced, and drew the string back with his left index and middle fingers. An arrow made of the same solid light as the string appeared and nocked itself between them. Fai’s grin widened. When he relaxed his arm and guided the string back to its original position, the arrow disappeared again. Kurogane looked reluctantly impressed.

Sakura returned her attention to Syaoran, who was watching the two adults with a fond smile.

“I’m sorry, Syaoran, but Rayearth’s bayard was lost during Tsubasa’s final battle with Fei Wang.” She clasped her hands together, wishing she had better news. “We can give you a standard plasma gun if that would help.”

Syaoran sighed and gave her a rueful smile.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll make do.”

Sakura felt her face heating up. Making a desperate effort to hold her ears and wings still, she hurried off to find a plasma gun for him.

* * *

Syaoran gripped Rayearth’s control levers and maneuvered him from the hangar. The wolf’s presence in his head was still foreign, but also strangely comforting. Right now, the Mashin could sense Syaoran’s nerves regarding the whole plan. Waves of confident reassurance emanated from the link. Rayearth had no more intention to fall into Ceresian possession than Syaoran did.

From the comm unit in his helmet came Tōya’s instructions to Fai and Kurogane. They were to wait until Syaoran had the warship’s full attention before sneaking Selece around to the escape pod bay. Syaoran tuned them out and pulled Rayearth to a stop. Hovering several hundred yards away from the ship, he followed Rayearth’s instructions to hail the main flight deck and open a channel.

“This is Li Syaoran, the paladin of Rayearth. I’ve come to surrender on the condition you let my friends go free.”

A brief burst of static preceded Rondart’s slimy voice in his ear.

_ “It’s good to know you’ve come to your senses,” _ he said, calm as ever,  _ “But you are in no position to negotiate. Bring him in.” _

The last sentence, clearly directed at a subordinate, was the only warning Syaoran had before a beam of orange light shot from a tower atop the ship. Syaoran had assumed it was a radio antenna. He and Rayearth dodged as Tōya shouted at him about tractor beams.

Rayearth barrel-rolled through the vacuum, sending waves of pure joy into Syaoran’s head. He thrust the control levers forward as far as they could go, whooping and shouting as they danced around and dodged laser fire. Kurogane shouted at him to be careful, but he tuned everyone out in favor of keeping the warship distracted.

A flood of small spacecraft poured from the ship like a swarm of pointy bees. They shot at Rayearth, creating a storm of laser fire for the Mashin to dive through. Lining up the wolf’s head with one of them, Syaoran pressed the button to fire his laser at it. The craft exploded as the internal oxygen supply combusted into a small fireball. Metal shards flew in all directions. Syaoran cheered in triumph and dodged more shots, already seeking his next target.

* * *

The pod bay was deserted when they landed Selece inside. Fai stayed mere steps behind Kurogane as they crept forward and into the halls. Mokona sat on Fai’s shoulder, dressed in their tiny space suit and helmet.

“Go left here.” They kept their squeaky voice low as they reached an intersection. The three crept through the hallways, frequently having to duck out of the way of the humanoid robotic soldiers patrolling them. After the fifth time they had to double back to avoid one, Kurogane growled in frustration.

“How the fuck did I get out of here the first time?” He tapped his metal fingers on the wall in time with the receding metal footsteps. “There’s a pattern to the patrols, I’m sure of it. I must have been stuck here for a long enough time to memorize it.”

Fai bit his lip and clenched his hand around the handle of his bayard. Reaching up to his helmet, he turned off the comms and flipped the switch so the full window and seal disappeared, leaving only the eye visor and helmet.

“Kuro-chan,” he said. Kurogane’s fingers stopped tapping and he pulled back from peering around the corner to glance at Fai. After briefly scanning Fai’s face, the taller man did the same to his helmet. Fai gritted his teeth and tried not to let his face betray him. It was a futile effort when Kurogane was involved.

“Kuro-rin, do you think the rest of your crew might be prisoners on this ship as well?”

Kurogane closed his eyes and sighed. He reached up and rubbed at his forehead — not out of agitation, Fai could tell, but because he had to strain to find an answer.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember more than small flashes.” He stared at Fai, eyes filled with honest regret. “I don’t know if I’ve seen them at all since Kerberos.”

Fai wished he could block out all the disappointment and anger he felt at that moment. Not at Kurogane — well, maybe a little — but at the ones who had taken him and their siblings captive.

“You promised, Kuro-sama,” He murmured. “When you left, you promised me you’d look after Yūi. You promised Kendappa you’d look after Tomoyo. And they promised to do the same for you.”

Kurogane stared at Fai like the blonde had slapped him.

“Go look for them.” Fai knew he was begging, but he couldn’t stop. “Please, at least try. They might not be here at all, but please, Kuro-tan, you have to look.”

Kurogane’s red eyes roved over Fai’s face again, dissecting every emotion he couldn’t hide. He nodded. Reaching out to Fai, he pulled him into a quick, tight hug.

“You go find the Mashin. I’ll meet you outside. Be careful,” Kurogane hissed before releasing him. Fai nodded, swallowed, and turned his comms back on before running off down the hall. It wasn’t until Mokona murmured for him to go right at the fork that he remembered they still sat on his shoulder. 

The hallway layout of the ship must have had some pattern, but Fai couldn’t discern what that might be. A meeting between two droid patrols forced him to wait on a stair landing while they beeped at each other. Eventually, half of them went on their merry way. The other half went through a door, opening and shutting it with their palms on a control pad. It reminded Fai of the doors back at the castle on Clow. Before they’d left to find Selece, Sakura had programmed their palm prints into the system so they could access all but the most private rooms in the castle.

Fai skidded to a stop as the turn Mokona indicated immediately led him to a dead end. While running through the ship, he had begun to feel an energy which was nearly identical to the one Rayearth had emanated. A tingling in the back of his mind grew until he couldn’t ignore it. It had felt like déjà vu at first, but now it was like another presence speaking to him without words. It was exactly like how Syaoran had described Rayearth’s presence in his head. Now, faced with a dead end with a strange crest emblazoned on the wall, the feeling was stronger than ever.

“Mokona doesn’t understand! It feels like Windam is right in front of us!” The little creature grabbed their helmet-covered ears and huffed.

“Yeah, I feel him too.” Fai nodded, distracted. The crest on the wall drew his attention. It was a bright red circle with negative space cut out to give the impression of a bat. Something about it sent chills down Fai’s spine. He shook his head and forced his attention back to finding Windam. The Mashin was calling to him, and Fai felt sure he was just on the other side of the wall.

A small flaw in the wall’s smooth gray surface caught his attention. When he crept forward to inspect it, he discovered another control pad. By some stroke of luck, its cover hadn’t properly settled in its place. If it had, he would have written the panel off as another blank piece of the wall. Fai grinned. He’d always wanted to find a hidden door, nevermind that he’d assumed it would be behind a bookshelf. Turning on his heel, he rushed off in the direction he’d come from.

Fai crept back down the hallways and gripped his bayard, waiting to bring the bow out until he found his quarry. It didn’t take long. Three droids walked down the hall towards the intersection where he stood. Fai waited until they had passed before drawing the bow, stepping out, and firing the glowing arrow into the middle droid’s back. He dodged back around the corner and nocked another arrow as the first one fell to the floor with a crash. Angry beeping filled the air.

The moment the two remaining droids appeared at the intersection, Fai loosed the second arrow, hitting one and sending it crashing into the other. He leaped forward and brought the bow down to smash the remaining droid’s head before it could get up.

_ “What the hell is going on over there?” _ Kurogane’s voice was tinny through the speaker in Fai’s helmet. He giggled and grabbed one droid arm, bracing his foot on its chest and tearing the limb off.

“Just taking out the trash, Kuro-wanwan.”

_ “Can’t you at least stick to the less embarrassing nicknames over the comms?” _ Kurogane sounded like he already knew the answer, so Fai didn’t bother to respond. He rushed back to the dead end and slammed the borrowed hand onto the panel. It flashed, scanned the palm with a bright purple light, and flashed again. A loud grinding noise reverberated through the hallway. Glancing nervously down the hallway for any droids the noise had alerted, Fai darted through the newly-revealed doorway and shut it behind him. He dropped the droid hand in shock when he turned to look into the room.

“I found him,” He breathed into the comms.

Windam sat perched in the middle of a large, empty hangar. As with Rayearth, a force field surrounded the Mashin, but this time Fai could hear Windam calling to him from behind it. His four metal wings spread around his body like a second shield. With cautious footsteps, Fai approached the force field and laid his gloved hands onto the surface. Windam’s eyes lit up and tilted his head to inspect Fai. It reminded him of Kurogane’s gaze, and how the red-eyed man could always see through the layers of shields and false cheer into the depths of him. Paradoxically, it made Fai feel safer.

“May I come in?” He grinned up at the Mashin. The force field between them sparkled and disappeared, allowing Fai to set his hands on the massive golden metal beak. Mokona made a happy chirp and jumped from Fai’s shoulder to his hand. Their little spacesuit-covered paws made tiny ringing sounds as they patted the metal.

A crackle in Fai’s helmet shattered the atmosphere.

_ “I have an escape pod full of prisoners headed down to the castle,”  _ Kurogane said. Fai’s heart skipped more than one beat as Sakura confirmed they’d be ready to receive them. It sank with Kurogane’s next words.  _ “Fai, I’m sorry. They weren’t on this ship.” _

Fai swallowed and fought to keep his breathing steady. He didn’t have time for grief or despair right now.

“We’ll just have to keep looking.” He gazed up at the eagle before him. “I found Windam. I’ll meet you outside, and we can finish this.”

Fai didn’t bother to listen to Kurogane’s confirmation. Windam opened his mouth and Fai all but threw his body up the ramp and into the pilot’s chair. The way the screens and dashboard lit up shouldn’t have felt so familiar — he hadn’t touched a ship’s controls since his days in the Garrison’s flight simulator. Windam’s presence in his mind projected confidence that they could work together, though, so he shoved his worries aside and blew open the hangar doors with a well-aimed laser blast.

* * *

Kurogane watched the escape pod disappear into Clow’s atmosphere and fought to keep his disappointment at bay. He didn’t have the time to deal with it right now — not while he still had a job to do. He’d taken out a patrol while escorting the prisoners to the escape pods, and he doubted their mangled robot corpses would go undiscovered for much longer.

It felt right to have a katana in his hand once again. Fond memories of kendo training with his father and admiring Ginryuu floated through his mind. He hoped Kendappa was taking good care of the sword in his absence. The bayard, while not a perfect substitute, held up to his best techniques. Perhaps using Hama Ryu-ō Jin against three robots was overkill, but it was a good way to relieve some of his pent-up frustration.

_ “Guys, I could really use some backup right about now.” _ Syaoran’s voice was tense. An explosion sounded over the comms and the boy grunted.  _ “These little fighters keep coming, and the main ship keeps firing a giant cannon at me every few minutes!” _

_ “I’m heading over in Windam.” _

“I’m boarding Selece now.” Kurogane sprinted to the other side of the pod bay, where his Mashin already waited with his mouth open.

He’d been wary and skeptical when Syaoran had first described to them what it felt like to have Rayearth in his head. It sounded so invasive. He’d understood, however, when he’d stood in front of that temple and felt Selece’s presence. The dragon had guided Kurogane through the damp stone hallways and, when he’d taken his seat in the cockpit, he had felt like his entire career as a pilot had led him there.

Selece was more responsive than a machine had any right to be. It felt incredible to steer him out into space and join the fray. He blasted a fighter pursuing Windam and sped up to draw abreast of the green Mashin.

_ “Thanks, Kuro-pii!” _ Fai called.  _ “Syaoran, how are you holding up?” _

_ “I’m trying to get over to you guys. There’re three or four fighters on my tail right now.” _

Kurogane wheeled Selece around, looking for Rayearth amongst the swarms of tiny spacecraft. A flash of red caught his eye. 

“Shit, they’re really going at him,” he growled. The wolf dodged and looped through the vacuum as a group of fighters pursued, firing with extreme prejudice. One shot clipped Rayearth in the shoulder and sent him careening to the right. Kurogane cursed. He and Fai sped towards the group and picked off the fighters while Syaoran corrected Rayearth’s trajectory. Selece caught the last fighter of the pack in his jaws and clamped down, filling the cockpit with the horrendous sound of screeching metal.

_ “What was that? Is everyone okay?” _ Sakura sounded terrified, and Kurogane unclenched his teeth long enough to answer.

“Yeah, but apparently this guy likes the taste of Ceresian fighter craft.” He pulled the Mashin around to target another swarm as they came around the port side of the warship.

A bright purple light appeared in Kurogane’s peripheral vision. When he spotted the source he swore and dove.

“Duck!” he shouted as the warship’s cannon sent a blast of energy past him. A jumbled mess of shouting filled the comms.

_ “You three need to hurry up and form Tsubasa,”  _ Tōya yelled,  _ “Before Rondart gets that ion cannon recharged!” _

_ “How?” _ Syaoran sounded winded, and Kurogane hoped he wasn’t getting too banged up inside Rayearth.  _ “We’ve never formed Tsubasa before, we don’t know how!” _

“What about that vision the wolf showed us back on Earth?” Kurogane shot down another fighter. “Maybe we have to fly in formation.”

_ “It’s worth a shot!” _ Fai laughed as another laser fired from the gem on Windam’s forehead. Kurogane groaned at the pun.

They had thinned the number of active fighter craft, leaving a clear space for the Mashin to converge. As they flew together, Kurogane waited for something to happen. How would they know it was working?

_ “Are we doing this right?” _ Syaoran asked, voicing Kurogane’s concerns aloud.  _ “I—” _

A bright orange light flooded Selece’s screens. Kurogane squinted against it. A tugging sensation filled his whole body.

“Something’s pulling on me.” He gripped the control levers and fought to keep his course steady. Something didn’t seem right. Selece’s presence in his mind didn’t seem happy about this.

_ “I feel it too!” _ Fai said.

_ “It’s not working!” _ Syaoran’s voice had an edge of panic. “ _ We’re caught in the warship’s tractor beam!” _

Kurogane swore. Swinging Selece around to face the warship, he considered his options. He refused to lose here. He had to find his sister and Fai’s brother. He had to keep his promise to Fai. If these bastards got the Mashin, he wouldn’t be the only one who lost everything. The Earth would be on borrowed time. Pointing Selece’s thrusters towards the ship, he fired them at full power to combat the beam’s pull.

“I will not be their prisoner again,” he spat. “If I go down, I’m going down swinging.”

He fired Selece’s laser again, hitting the tower projecting the tractor beam. The orange light sputtered, but it didn’t die.

_ “If we all hit it at once, maybe we can knock it out!” _ Syaoran called.

_ “Everyone, aim at the tower! Fire on the count of three!” _ Fai’s voice was steady as he counted. On “three,” Kurogane fired Selece’s laser and sent the Mashin a desperate plea to pour all the power he had into it. He swore he felt his fellow paladins as they did the same.

All three Mashin went careening backward when the tractor beam failed and their thrusters no longer had to strain against the force. The tower exploded, metal twisting and melting from the heat. Selece dodged a mangled piece of hull plating as it whizzed past.

_ “Let’s try it again! I think we can do it!” _ Syaoran’s voice sounded nearer, as if Kurogane could hear it in his mind as well as from the comms. Selece sent his excitement at the idea into Kurogane’s head.

The three Mashin converged some distance away from the warship. As they flew they took the positions they’d seen in Rayearth’s vision — Kurogane on the right, Fai on the left, and Syaoran in the middle. Selece urged Kurogane to fly them as fast as they could go. Judging by Fai and Mokona’s joyful whooping, he guessed Windam had the same idea.

_ “Let’s go!” _ Syaoran shouted. All three Mashin shot out into space, hurtling further from the warship and Clow. The cockpit around Kurogane began to glow; faintly at first,but growing brighter as they flew. The place in the back of his mind which held Selece filled and grew, and he could sense the other two Mashin and their paladins within. The glow became a blinding flash of white light. When it faded, Kurogane felt the change immediately.

_ “We did it!”  _ Fai cheered, with Mokona joining him in the background. Kurogane felt his excitement through their new mental link. It wasn’t mind-reading — he couldn’t hear Syaoran or Fai’s thoughts — but he now had an awareness of them in the back of his head. Together, they steered Tsubasa towards the warship.

“What do you guys say we destroy this thing?” Kurogane grinned and imagined using the robot to tear the warship to pieces. They rocketed back down, catching the ion cannon as they passed and using their momentum to tear it from the ship’s body. Tsubasa hefted the canon like a club. They flew past the exhaust ports and slammed it into them, rocking the warship from the force of the blow.

A door in the side paneling of Selece’s cockpit under the dashboard slid up to reveal a port or outlet of some kind. Its blue glow pulsed, drawing Kurogane’s attention. The port looked like it was the right shape for… he twitched his hand to materialize his bayard, shoved it in, and gave it a quarter-turn clockwise. The blue glow spread in fine lines from the port along the paneling until the whole cockpit was lit with lines of light.

_ “Kuro-myu, what was that?” _

Kurogane grinned as Tsubasa held up a massive sword in their right hand. Rather than answer, he swung the weapon at the back of the warship. It cut through and left a deep ravine in the metal. He felt the others’ understanding dawn.

Tsubasa plunged the sword into the ship and shot forward, dragging the blade behind them. They corkscrewed around the ship, cutting through the hull, windows, and inner walls alike. Small explosions followed in their wake. When they reached the bow, they shot past and let the blade fall to their side. They turned and watched as the warship’s lights sputtered and it careened, smoking and in flames, down to a remote area in the desert of Clow.

Kurogane pulled his bayard from the port. It disappeared back into its holster on his thigh and he let out a sharp laugh. The glow returned and soon they were in their individual Mashin once again. Kurogane could no longer feel Syaoran and Fai’s presence in the back of his mind.

_ “You did it!” _ Kurogane jumped as Sakura’s voice broke through the stunned silence.  _ “Congratulations, paladins!” _

Kurogane slumped in the pilot’s chair and directed Selece back towards Clow’s atmosphere. His smile softened as he listened to the others’ shouts of celebration. The adrenaline from the battle still made his heart pound. Combined with the heady relief of winning, he felt like he could take on the entire Empire right now.

He gave in to the urge to laugh in triumph.

* * *

They landed the Mashin in the courtyard in front of the castle. The white metal shone in the setting sun, which cast a soft golden glow around them. Fai felt ready to sleep for a week. His body was screaming that it was past his bedtime back on Earth, in his little home in the Arizona desert. He could hardly believe it had only been this morning that he, Kurogane, and Syaoran had left the house with the sole intention of finding an energy source. Look at him now; pulled into an intergalactic war he never could have imagined existed alongside a man he’d almost given up hope of ever seeing again.

Stepping down Windam’s gangplank and onto the flagstones, he pulled his helmet off and shook his head. His hair was matted against his forehead and damp with sweat. A few yards away, Syaoran did the same as he left Rayearth. Sakura stood next to Tōya in front of the castle’s grand main entrance, but when she spotted Syaoran she ran towards him. Her wings flared and sent her gliding several feet every few steps until she crashed into the boy.

“You were amazing!” she squealed, hugging him tightly with arms and wings and knocking the helmet from his hand. He blushed, stammered, and tentatively returned the embrace. “I knew you were the perfect paladins, I knew it!”

Mokona sprang from Fai’s shoulder to join the embracing teenagers. Back by the door, Tōya sported an expression of exasperated fondness. Fai’s heart clenched, remembering how Yūi used to make the same face at him and Kurogane.

Heavy footsteps snapped Fai from his thoughts. Kurogane strode from Selece’s open mouth, holding his helmet carelessly in his left hand. He was beautiful in his red and white armor. With the sun at his back, the light burnished the tips of his spiky black hair gold. Fai dropped his helmet, took Sakura’s example, and ran towards him. Kurogane glanced up at the sound of his footsteps. Rolling his eyes, he tossed aside his helmet and held out his arms for Fai to fling himself into. 

Fai wrapped his arms around Kurogane’s neck and his legs around his waist, pulling the man into a deep kiss while Kurogane held him up. Strong arms slipped under his thighs and — yep, that was a hand on Fai’s ass. He giggled into the kiss, trying to pour all his relief and joy into it. Kurogane responded with hunger. Oh, Fai had missed this.

He pulled away, panting, and pressed his forehead to Kurogane’s. Red eyes met blue. Fai’s mouth quirked in a genuine smile which Kurogane returned with a smirk.

“That was incredible, Kuro-sama,” he whispered into the minuscule space between them. “You were incredible.”

Kurogane’s cheeks turned pink. Fai grinned wider.

“You weren’t so bad either, Idiot.” He lowered Fai back to the ground. The smirk fell away into a more serious expression, and he reached up to tangle his right hand in Fai’s hair. “We’ll find them, I promise. We’ll find your brother and my sister and we’ll bring them home.”

Fai leaned into Kurogane’s hand. “I guess we’ll have to keep up this paladin gig, huh? Seems like the best way to scour multiple galaxies for two wayward humans.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of opportunities,” Tōya cut in, “Because starting today, we are going to stop Fei Wang and liberate every planet he’s enslaved.”

Fai craned his neck to look at the young man without breaking from Kurogane’s hold. His crossed arms conveyed an aloof and royal air, but he gazed fondly up at the three Mashin. Sakura pumped her fist into the air. From her shoulder, Mokona mimicked her.

“We’re going to be the defenders of the universe!” She cheered.

Fai stared up at the Mashin. “‘Defenders of the universe,’ huh?”

“That has a nice ring to it,” Kurogane said. Fai laughed. An idea popped into his head and he gasped.

“Speaking of rings, Kuro-myu, we need to get you a new one!” He grabbed Kurogane’s left hand and tapped the knuckle of his ring finger. “And then we should get married!”

“In space?” Kurogane raised an eyebrow. “You want to elope out here? Our siblings will kill us the moment we find them.”

“Tōya’s a king, I’m sure he has the authority to officiate. Oh, and maybe we could get married again on each planet we visit. Just to make sure it’s official.”

Kurogane pulled his hand away and shoved Fai, who danced away from him a few steps and giggled.

“Now you’re just being weird!” He reached out to scrub a hand through Fai’s hair, so Fai ducked and ran towards the castle. He couldn’t stop laughing. They may be stuck out here with galaxies between them and Earth, fighting a war for the fate of the universe, but at that moment there was nowhere else he wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE thank-you to everyone who helped me with this fic: littlefuzzydude, for brainstorming with me; yououui, for making some very good suggestions for things to add, and crystalrequiem, for polishing my word choice and making this thing readable.
> 
> Please vote for [this fic](https://kurofai.dreamwidth.org/125263.html) and the others in the competition over on our [Dreamwidth community!](https://kurofai.dreamwidth.org/)  
Comments and kudos here are always appreciated!


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